The Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) is pleased to announce the selection of Sarah Hasnain and Katherine Gallagher as Raelyn Cole Editorial Fellows. The Raelyn Cole Editorial Fellowship is a unique opportunity for early career aquatic scientists to gain experience in all aspects of scientific publishing, including open-access publishing, peer review, and scientific writing. During their appointments, fellows develop projects of interest focused on scholarly publishing and work closely with the RCEF Program Director, editors of the ASLO journals, staff, and members of the ASLO Board and committees. Fellows will share their experiences with the broader community through blogging, publications, social media, and sessions at ASLO meetings. Dr. Hasnain began her two-year fellowship on 1 June 2026, and Dr. Gallagher’s term will begin 1 April 2027.
Sarah Hasnain is an ecologist who uses trait-based approaches to understand and predict changes in ecosystem function using marine and freshwater plankton. She recently completed a postdoctoral position at the Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche in France and will be starting a postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for Ecological Research in Hungary. She is also a founding member and co-organizer of the AQUACOSM-plus ECR network, which connects more than 300 aquatic mesocosm-based researchers globally to foster research collaborations and skill sharing, among early career scientists. Sarah is an advocate for open and reproducible research practices in science such as open data and code, study pre-registration, and broader reproducibility initiatives. As a Raelyn Cole Fellow, Sarah is excited to work with the ASLO editorial team to learn from their experience and expand the society's reach in under-represented regions and communities.
Katherine Gallagher is a Habitat Analyst for the IBSS Corporation, in support of the NOAA Northeast Science Center. Her current research focuses on quantifying commercially valuable fish species' vulnerability to future climate change. She received her PhD from the University of Delaware, where her dissertation focused on the bio-physical coupling processes that drive the biological hotspot in Palmer Deep Canyon. Katherine also previously completed two postdocs at Stony Brook University, examining how penguin and krill distributions and transport mechanisms are linked across the West Antarctic Peninsula, and the bio-physical drivers of baleen whale distributions in the New York Bight. Katherine has been interested in scientific publishing since she served as a writer, editor, and the Editor in Chief for a student-run science magazine during her undergraduate career at Northeastern University. She is excited to learn more about scientific publishing as a Raelyn Cole Editorial Fellow and to help make the academic publishing processes more transparent and accessible during her fellowship.
The Raelyn Cole Fellowship was established in 2017 through a generous gift from Dale Cole and family in memory of Raelyn Cole, Managing Editor of ASLO's flagship journal, Limnology and Oceanography, from 1965 to 1996, and recipient of ASLO's Distinguished Service Award. Paul Kemp, Director of the Raelyn Cole Editorial Fellowship, says, “This year, we are celebrating the tenth year of the Raelyn Cole Editorial Fellowship program. I am delighted to welcome Sarah and Katherine to a distinguished group of individuals who have made many noteworthy contributions to academic publishing, including developing and managing the highly regarded ASLO Early Career Publication Honor. I look forward to working with Sarah and Katherine as they develop their projects and contribute to the success of ASLO's publications portfolio!”
To learn more about the Raelyn Cole Editorial Fellowship and the legacy of Raelyn Cole, as well as support the fellowship, please visit: https://www.aslo.org/opportunities-in-aslo/raelyn-cole-editorial-fellowship/.